1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to card games and particularly to a casino poker card game using a new wild card for each round of play randomly selected after an opening bet, dealing hands to each player, and placing a bet on the dealt hand prior to randomly selecting the new wild card.
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
In the past, gaming establishments have offered a variety of poker games to players having different levels of sophistication. The variety of poker games both maintains and increases interest in poker play and provides diversified profit centers for gaming establishments. Such poker games include both table games and machine-generated games. Some players have a greater preference for playing a poker table game where players feel they are using a level of player skill to determine the outcome of the poker table game, as opposed to playing a machine-generated poker game requiring less player skill.
There are poker games that use wild cards which are predetermined such as “Deuces Wild” where all cards with a rank of 2 are wild. Other examples would be poker games that contain a joker where the joker can be used to substitute for any rank or suit. There are poker games that have wild cards that have specific abilities such as the joker in Pai Gow Poker. The joker can only be used as an ace or to complete any straight or flush.
With a predetermined wild card, the value of a player's hand is immediately determined upon inspection. In order to create an environment where a player's hand can change during the course of play, some poker games allow the wild card to be determined while the game is in progress. For example, during a round of poker, a card that follows a predetermined card will be the wild card. If the predetermined card is a rank of 3, the card that is dealt directly after the 3 is now the wild card for the hand and will remain wild until the round is over or another 3 is dealt. In this case the next card dealt is now the wild rank and the previous wild card reverts back to its regular status.
Prior art poker games suffer from numerous disadvantages. One such disadvantage is simply that many players are tired or bored with prior art poker games, many of which have been available for decades. Games, such as the variations of Texas Hold 'Em, have experienced success in casinos by giving the players a chance to improve their hand up until the last card is dealt. With the inclusion of a randomly selected wild card that changes for each round of play, the players will have more opportunities to better their hand as the game progresses and create the feeling that there are more chances to win.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,947,821, issued Sep. 7, 1999 to Stone, is for an apparatus and method for playing a card game, which provides a player with an initial choice of selecting at least one card from a plurality of cards to be designated as a wild card. The player then receives a random first hand from a full deck of cards. The first hand of cards are compared with the designated wild card to determine all matching cards and designating all matching cards in the first hand as wild cards. The player may then be provided with the option of replacing cards in the first hand with cards remaining in the deck. All replacement cards which match the wild card will also become wild. The player is also provided with an option of buying a second wild card after a losing card hand. This provides the player with an opportunity to change a losing card hand into a winning card hand. After a winning card hand the player is provided with a double or nothing option which provides a further dynamic game exchange between player and game.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,308,065, issued May 3, 1994 to Bridgeman et al, provides a game of chance and skill where a player, after making a wager, is dealt, face-up, a hand of five cards which is placed in a player-hand area. The player also receives a solitary card, which is dealt face down in a single-card area. The player then has a chance to improve the ranking of the five-card hand by discarding up to five cards and replacing them with an equal number of new cards. After the player rearranges the five-card hand, the solitary card is turned face-up and all the cards in the player's hand which have the same face value as the solitary card are designated wild. The ranking winnings are calculated according to a statistical pay table.
What is needed is a game of chance in which a new wild card is randomly selected for each round after an opening bet, dealing the hands, and betting on the hands prior to the wild card selection to create an environment where a player's hand can change during the course of play to encourage continued play and betting based on a possibility of improving the hand after betting and then determining the net wild card for the round.